President Trump leaving Air Force One on Sunday at Joint Base Andrews after a weekend in Florida.Credit
Al Drago/The New York Times

Mar-a-Lago is hardly a secure situation room

By the looks of his Facebook feed, Richard DeAgazio is a big fan of President Trump’s. Witness his Facebook feed on anti-immigrant protests in Italy, courtesy of the Russian propaganda network RT, the photo of Bill Clinton with a woman that he spuriously identifies as the former president’s new girlfriend, and a caricature of Barack Obama in a sombrero.

But Mr. DeAgazio did the current president no favors with his fanboy posts from Mar-a-Lago this weekend in a public dining room as the prime minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe, and the president of the United States scrambled to respond to a North Korean ballistic missile test.

“HOLY MOLY !!! It was fascinating to watch the flurry of activity at dinner when the news came that North Korea had launched a missile in the direction of Japan. The Prime Minister Abe of Japan huddles with his staff and the President is on the phone with Washington DC. the two world leaders then conferred and then went into another room for hastily arranged press conference. Wow.....the center of the action!!!”

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A club member posted images of the national security discussion on Facebook.

It was a remarkable display on Mr. Trump’s part of a lack of concern for prying eyes and security awareness.

But hey, Mr. DeAgazio also posed with the service member who carries the nuclear launch codes for the president.

“This is Rick...He carries the “football” The nuclear football (also known as the atomic football, the President’s emergency satchel, the Presidential Emergency Satchel, the button, the black box, or just the football) is a briefcase, the contents of which are to be used by the President of the United States to authorize a nuclear attack.”

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Mr. DeAgazio’s Facebook page is no longer publicly accessible.

Seeking the elusive Obama-Trump voter

Numerically, there may not have been many of them, but voters who sided with Barack Obama in 2012 and Donald J. Trump in 2016 most likely delivered the White House to President Trump, with his narrow wins in Wisconsin, Michigan and Florida.

In polling and focus groups in those three states, the Democratic “super PAC,” Priorities USA, says it has reason to believe the elusive Obama-Trump voter can be brought back into the Democratic fold, according to a Priorities USA strategy memo to be released Monday afternoon. Half of the Obama-Trump voters they reached confessed to mixed feelings about their 2016 vote, and only 35 percent of those “soft Trump voters” have confidence that Mr. Trump will do a good job as president.

That is especially true for women who voted for Mr. Obama and Mr. Trump and did not have a college degree.

Another group under a microscope are people who voted in 2012 but did not bother last November. Such drop-off voters described themselves as surprised by the outcome of the election and “extremely unhappy” about the results, the memo says.

The good news for Democrats: Both groups are leery of tax and social welfare policies that favor the wealthy over the struggling middle class.

The bad news: Reaching them won’t be easy. They get their information from their own sources like Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and other online outlets that are notoriously wrong.

A gift to capture Trump’s heart

Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, was born into politics, the son of another Canadian leader, Pierre Trudeau.

So when he came to the White House to break the ice with President Trump, he knew just the gift to warm the new president’s heart: a picture of himself.

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This picture was presented to President Trump by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada. It shows Mr. Trump honoring Mr. Trudeau’s father, Pierre, at a dinner in New York City in 1981.Credit
White House Pool

“He gave me a picture of myself and your father, and what a great picture. I will keep that in a very special place,” Mr. Trump said, meaning, presumably, a picture of “his father.”

Democrats note Icahn’s potential conflicts of interest in regulatory role

Last year, the billionaire investor Carl C. Icahn waged an all-out battle with the Environmental Protection Agency, complaining that regulations were strangling the oil industry. Now, as Mr. Trump’s special adviser on overhauling regulation, Mr. Icahn has the ear of the president and a front-row seat as the administration rewrites regulation.

This has some Democratic senators worried. On Monday, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, and six other Senate Democrats will send a letter to the White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, seeking responses to a series of questions related to Mr. Icahn’s official role. The senators will raise concerns that Mr. Icahn will work to change regulations to benefit his own investments. They are also seeking assurances that safeguards have been put in place to ensure that Mr. Icahn does not have access to information that is not public that could be used to make profitable trades.

The letter, a copy of which was reviewed by The New York Times, comes days before the Senate is expected to take up the nomination of Scott Pruitt, Mr. Trump’s candidate to head the E.P.A.

Icahn Enterprises, Mr. Icahn’s firm, has large investments in companies that are affected by E.P.A. regulations, which he has described as stifling. But it is his majority investment in CVR Energy, an oil refiner, that is of biggest concern to the senators. CVR is required by the E.P.A. to blend its oil or buy credits, something Mr. Icahn has called “completely, totally absurd.” He has blamed the E.P.A. for the bankruptcies of several oil refineries in the United States.

An activist investor and outsider for most of his career, Mr. Icahn staked his career on attacking the chieftains of intransigent companies and regulators. The caustic approach often resulted in victory, a strategy that earned him accolades from Mr. Trump as a “brilliant negotiator.” Mr. Icahn was one of Mr. Trump’s most vocal supporters and a donor during the campaign. During the transition, he weighed in on candidates like Mr. Mnuchin for Treasury secretary and Mr. Pruitt, who has also been vocal in his criticism of E.P.A. regulation.

At the time of his appointment, the transition team said Mr. Icahn, 80, would not serve as a federal employee and would not have specific duties. Since the election in November, CVR’s stock has gained 69 percent, rallying to $21.58 a share.

President Trump: Florida man

As virtually anyone in the United States — and much of the world — knows, the new president of the United States is fond of communicating via Twitter, and he wanted his audience to understand on Sunday that he is much loved in Florida.

He did beat Hillary Clinton in the Sunshine State, and crushed his Republican primary race opponents.

Just leaving Florida. Big crowds of enthusiastic supporters lining the road that the FAKE NEWS media refuses to mention. Very dishonest!

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Perhaps not quite as famous on Twitter — but pretty famous, anyway — is the @_FloridaMan, who uses his Twitter feed to share the highlights — and mainly lowlights — of the denizens of the state. And Florida Man shared some probably selective photographs of those enthusiastic South Florida crowds, including one photograph with a sign that read, “Resist Resist Resist.”